In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, we see in the parable of the Grand Inquisitor the discussion between the Grand Inquisitor and Jesus on the latter’s tests in the wilderness. We have discussed the first test in a previous online blog. Now we look at the second test in which Satan tells Jesus to jump off the highest part of the temple for God will command his angels so that Jesus will not be hurt. In regards to the second temptation, the Grand Inquisitor tells Jesus, “You knew very well at that moment that if you had made the slightest move to jump, You would have tempted God, proving You had lost Your faith in Him, and You would have been smashed against the earth that You had come to save.” Rather than relying on God out of faith in what he has said, Jesus could have ‘tested’ God’s faithfulness to keep Jesus from harm. By doing this, Jesus would have demonstrated that he would have needed proof. Rather Jesus obeyed God by not putting God to the test.

The Grand Inquisitor goes on to say, “Is human nature such that it can reject a miracle when confronted with the most frightening choices, the most heart-breaking dilemmas, and remain facing them with nothing but freedom of choice?”  We see the first two temptations in Job where Job’s bread is taken away and he his faced with the most heart wrenching dilemmas. Yet he does not demand of God. Dostoevsky sheds light on man’s heart – “Didn’t You know that whenever man rejects miracles he rejects God, because he seeks not so much God as miracles?” Jesus rebuked the people for wanting miracles (Matthew 16:1-4). How many of us demand a sign or miracle from God for our faith.

The sign for a miracle in the second test was presented again to Jesus on the cross (see Matthew 27:42). Again the Grand Inquisitor, “You did not come down from the cross when they shouted, taunting and challenging You, “Come down from the cross and we will believe that You are He.” You did not come down, again because You did not want to bring man to You by miracles, because You wanted their freely given love rather than the servile rapture of slaves subdued forever by a display of power.”

How many believers struggle  because of the lack of miracles in their lives? Time and time again we read of the saints, after experiencing God early on, experience a lack of the sense of the presence of God in their lives. This was true of people from Martin Luther to Mother Theresa. Philip Yancy in his book Disappointment with God, expands on this topic. God wants us to pursue him out of our freedom and not our dependence on miracles. Jesus proved his freedom to trust in God without having to see demonstration of it.